According to documents released by the US Federal authorities, officials affiliated with Hobby Lobby, the American craft-supply mega-chain, have relinquished another 245 ancient cylinder seals (in some articles it has been misquoted that the forfeiture included cuneiform tablets), originating from ancient Mesopotamia, to a storage facility within the Eastern District of New York on Wednesday, January 17, 2018.

According to the letter signed by United States Attorney Richard Donoghue and Assistant U.S. Attorney Karin Orenstein, the forfeited items, from the zone of modern day Iraq

As noted in documents related to that civil forfeiture agreement, Hobby Lobby president, and evangelical benefactor, Steve Green, through his designated buyers, began building a substantial private collection of antiquities in anticipation of the opening the the Green-sponsored $800 million, eight-story Museum of the Bible, which later opened this past November.

According to the Museum of the Bible website, the Green's purchased their first biblical object in November 2009. Since that time, their private collection has grown to an accelerated rate to an estimated 40,000 objects which includes Dead Sea Scroll fragments, biblical papyri, rare biblical texts and manuscripts, cuneiform tablets, Torah scrolls, and rare printed Bibles.

On one of the Green's authorised purchasing trips in July 2010 to the UAE, in which Green himself attended, Hobby Lobby negotiated the purchase of

paying $1.6 million despite the lack of accompanying legitimate paperwork and the likely plundered origin of the artifacts. The procured antiquities were then shipped to the purchaser in multiple shipments via Federal Express to Oklahoma City to various different destination addresses affiliated with Hobby Lobby and its subsidiaries.

Five of these shipments, however, were intercepted in transit between January 3rd and January 5th 2011 and were found to have been falsely labeled as "Ceramic Tiles" or "Tiles (Sample)"[pages 13-14]misidentifying the contents of the packages so that the artifacts instead appeared to be simply arts and crafts items.

As the importation of cultural property into the United States in violation of a foreign country’s patrimony law (in this case Iraq) violates the National Stolen Property Act, codified at Title 18, United States Code, Section 2314, et seq. the objects were seized by federal authorities and an investigation was initiated.

As an outcome of that US Federal investigation, Hobby Lobby agreed to hand over 5,548 smuggled artifacts in July 2017 and the firm was heavily criticized by both academics and the general public for supporting the illicit trade through its unethical purchase of antiquities.

The June 2017 stipulation of settlement between Hobby Lobby and the United States stated that:

"in the event that any of the Artifacts not included in the Defendants in rem were to “come into [Hobby Lobby’s] physical custody or control, whether inside or outside of the United States, [then] Hobby Lobby will immediately notify the Office and arrange for such Artifacts to be delivered to a place to be designated by the [United States] at Hobby Lobby’s sole expense."[page eight]

Where are the remaining 1709 objects Hobby Lobby has agreed to hand over?

In 2017, according to documentation filed with the US Federal Courts in July 2017, Hobby Lobby relinquished 3,594 clay bullae, cylinder seals, cuneiform tablets and other Near Eastern artifacts out of a total of over 5,500 documented in the same purchase. This weeks additional 2018 forfeiture of 245 cylinder seals brings the total number of artefacts relinquished to date by Hobby Lobby to only 3,839 objects.

Equally important, when will the Museum of the Bible answer scholars who have been posing questions for several years about the provenance and authenticity of additional key objects which remain part of, or are on display at the newly opened Museum of the Bible.

On Friday, January 5, 2018, Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and assistant district attorney Matthew Bogdanos also initiated seizures at Phoenix Ancient Art, New York, in connection with an investigation into the purchase of illicitly trafficked antiquities.

The second-generation family business Phoenix Ancient Art has galleries in New York and Geneva. The business was founded by Sleiman Aboutaam in 1968 and is now operated by his sons, Hicham and Ali Aboutaam. The Aboutaam name comes up frequently on ARCA's blog.

The search warrants executed at 47 East 66th street resulted in the seizure of the following objects:

F) Corinthian figural representing a Sea-Serpent with a human torso and head of a man (the “Sea-Serpent”) painted with black dots.
Period: dating to the 6th century BCE
Measurement: 4.5 inches tall by 1.75 inches wide
Valued at: $140,000

In addition to the antiquities, as with the seizures which were executed at Michael Steinhardt's residence and office, the DA's seizure warrant called for the seizure of:

The pieces, some 96 crates in total, weighing in at a whopping 5,000 kilos, had been trafficked illegally. The repatriated cargo includes two of the incredibly mysterious pre-Columbian spheres sculpted from gabbro, the coarse-grained equivalent of basalt, believed to have been created by the Diquís civilization, as well as pottery, vases, human figurines, zoomorphic ocarinas (musical instruments), and metates (grain-grinding stones).

The ancient cargo arrived to Port Moin in Limón, Costa Rica by boat on Tuesday, January 2, 2018 and concretized Guatemala's promise to return plundered goods, once part of a controversial private collector's extensive collection.

Found deep in the jungles of Costa Rica, the Las Bolas petrospheres (literally "the balls") of the Diquís civilization date back to the Aguas Buenas Period (300–800 CE) and Chiriquí Period (800–1550 CE). Some researchers believe the round stone balls, varying in size from a few centimeters to over two meters in diameter, may possibly have served as landmarks, though their exact significance remains uncertain.

The Las Bolas were discovered in the 1930s when Companía Bananera de Costa Rica, a branch of the United Fruit Company, began clearing portions of the nutrient-rich jungle delta in preparation for banana cultivation. They are unique to Costa Rica.

In October 2016, La Nacion published a special report titled "Memoria Robata" which revealed a longstanding network of Costa Rican traffickers supplying the illicit market of global archaeological art.

Beginning in 2014 Venezuela began making significant progress in its fight against illicit trafficking in cultural property. One of the country's most important cases included the seizures of archaeological pieces from Case Männil, also known as the Casa de los Jaguares (the House of the Jaguars), a property which belonged to the alleged Estonian Nazi collaborator Harry Männil.

After the Second World War, Männil, also known as Harry Mannil Laul, spent most of his life in Latin America, and until a few years before his death resided in Venezuela. During his lifetime he was considered to be one of Venezuela's powerhouse businessman serving as one of the founders of the country's ACO, C.A., a holding company for an umbrella organization of over eighty companies engaged in a wide variety of industries throughout the country.

Despite being listed as the 10th most wanted Nazi criminal by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for crimes against jews while working for the political police in 1941–1942 during the German occupation of Estonia, Männil was awarded the Order of the Star of Carabobo and the Order of Francisco de Miranda by the Venezuelan government.

As a philanthropist and art collector, Männil was also owner of one of the world’s largest and most coveted private collections of art. In 1997 his collection of pre-Columbian art, modern Latin American art, and art of the South American Indigenous people influenced Artnews to list him as one of the 200 most important private collectors in the world.

Despite that art market accolade, the possession, trade and trafficking of pre-Columbian art has been severely banned in Costa Rica since 1982 and the country's laws state that all discovered historic objects from specific periods must be relinquished into the hands of the state.

As a result of national law, the National Museum of Costa Rica filed a formal complaint against both Harry Mannil Laul and his son Mikhel Mannil D’Empaire, for the “illegal trade in archaeological property” laying claim to significant portions of the family's collection.

After Mannil passed away on January 11, 2010, Costa Rican authorities raided his farm in San Rafael de Heredia on July 22, 2010 and seized 108 pieces of pre-Columbian art, including fourteen additional Bolas. Officials at that time stated that the pieces had been obtained through illegal purchase which broke the country's law against trafficking in archaeological artifacts.

Pre-Columbian pieces seized in 2010 in the San Rafael de Heredia, Costa Rican
home of Harry Mannil. Image Credit: La Nacion

In 2010 fifty-six pieces of Männil’s collection were seized by the Customs Police and the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Venezuela, when the family tried to export the Pre-Columbian objects to the United States.

In 2014, a second seizure of objects was made, this time at Männil's Caracas home, the Casa de los Jaguares (House of the Jaguars). Archaeologist Marlin Calvo, head of the Department of Protection of Cultural Heritage Museum National, traveled to Caracas and surveyed the historic remains recovered during that raid as well as immovable pieces which remained on the property and determined that many of the pieces were from pre-Columbian cultures and originated in Costa Rica. This including jaguar metate, whose heads had been decapitated and embedded into masonry walls as decorative elements, lending their name to the collector's residence.

Image Credit: La Nacion

How Männil exported these pre-Columbian pieces from Costa Rico to Venezuela was not clear.

While legal mechanisms are currently in place to protect Costa Rica's archaeological heritage and to control the traffic in antiquities, the looting of sites by huaqueros (grave robbers, nighthawks) has been and to a lesser extent still is a significant problem which results in the destruction of archaeological evidence and the loss of knowledge about Costa Rica’s past.

Between 1983 and 2016, 519 complaints of trade, transport and illegal export in archaeological material were filed in Costa Rica, 386 of which resulted in seizures.

Yesterday ARCA reported on the assets seizures involving 78-year-old Gianfranco Becchina, an action taken in relation to probable collusion with the Sicilian mafia, Cosa Nostra. The disgraced Italian antiquities dealer was convicted in the first degree in 2011 for his role in the illegal antiquities trade. A portion of his accumulated business records, up until 2002, were seized earlier by Swiss and Italian authorities during raids conducted on Becchina’s Swiss art gallery, Palladion Antique Kunst, as well as two storage facilities inside the Basel Freeport, and another elsewhere in Switzerland. This archive of documents and photos, known as the Becchina archive, consists of some 140 binders containing more than 13,000 documents and photos related to antiquities, bought and sold, which at one point or another are known to have passed through this dealer's network of illicit suppliers.

Mafia association is a formal criminal offense provided for by the Italian penal code introduced into law via article 416-ter of Law no. 646/1982, and designed to combat the spread of the Mafia.

Art. 416-ter reads:

"Any person participating in a Mafia-type unlawful association including three or more persons shall be liable to imprisonment for 7 to 12 years.

Those persons promoting, directing or organizing the said association shall be liable, for this sole offence, to imprisonment for 9 to 14 years.

Mafia-type unlawful association is said to exist when the participants take advantage of the intimidating power of the association and of the resulting conditions of submission and silence to commit criminal offences, to manage or at all events control, either directly or indirectly, economic activities, concessions, authorizations, public contracts and services, or to obtain unlawful profits or advantages for themselves or for others, or with a view to prevent or limit the freedom to vote, or to get votes for themselves or for others on the occasion of an election.

Should the association be of the armed type, the punishment shall be imprisonment for 9 to 15 years pursuant to paragraph 1 and imprisonment for 12 to 24 years pursuant to paragraph 2.

An association is said to be of the armed type when the participants have firearms or explosives at their disposal, even if hidden or deposited elsewhere, to achieve the objectives of the said association.

If the economic activities of which the participants in the said association aim at achieving or maintaining the control are funded, totally or partially, by the price, the products or the proceeds of criminal offences, the punishments referred to in the above paragraphs shall be increased by one-third to one-half.

The offender shall always be liable to confiscation of the things that were used or meant to be used to commit the offence and of the things that represent the price, the product or the proceeds of such offence or the use thereof.

The provisions of this article shall also apply to the Camorra, ‘ndrangheta and to any other associations, whatever their local titles, even foreigners, seeking to achieve objectives that correspond to those of Mafia-type unlawful association by taking advantage of the intimidating power of the association."

To further dismantle Matteo Messina Denaro’s operational funding, Italy's Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate (DIA) moved to seize Becchina's cement trade business, Atlas Cements Ltd., his olive oil company, Olio Verde srl., Demetra srl., Becchina & Company srl., bank accounts, land, and real estate properties including Palazzo Pignatelli yesterday. Palazzo Pignatelli is part of the ancient Castello Bellumvider, a separate portion of which is owned by the city of Castelvetrano and houses the town hall.

During the execution of the seizure of assets at Palazzo Pignatelli, a fire mysteriously broke out in a first-floor study, located in Becchina's wing of of the property. Called on the scene, fire department officials extinguished the flames yesterday and returned for a second time today, along with the DIA and scientific police to uncover any traces that would determine the cause of the fire.

The seizure of these Becchina assets comes following the cooperation of mafia associate/police informant Giuseppe Grigoli, known in wiretaps as Grig. Grigoli once owned a chain of Despar supermarkets in northwestern Sicily, used to launder mafia proceeds into the legal economy. Starting out in 1974 as the owner of one grocery, Grigoli parlayed his relationship with Cosa Nostra, building a business empire which was once valued as a 700 million euro enterprise.

The Italian authorities seized Grigoli's assets when they tied him to mafia transactions through banking documents from 1999 through 2002, when the "king of supermarkets" was at the height of his business success. The arrest and conviction of Grigoli proved to be the tip of the Trapani Cosa Nostra iceberg and served to flush out many players in the hidden network of strategic partners that facilitate the activities of fugitive Castelvetrano boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, including now, Gianfranco Becchina.

As a now cooperating police informant, Grigoli told the PM of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Palermo that between 1999 and 2006 he was given envelopes filled with money by Becchina which were to be delivered to Vincenzo Panicola, the husband of Matteo Messina Denaro's sister Patrizia Messina Denaro. But Becchina's mafia influence doesn't apparently stop at trafficking of antiquities and aiding and abetting a mobster on the run.

An article written in today’s La Repubblica by journalist Salvo Palazzolo, reports that during a 2001 Carabinieri TPC wiretap into Becchina’s role in the illicit trafficking of antiquities, law enforcement authorities overheard conversations between Becchina and Santo Sacco, a former UIL trade unionist and city councillor for Castelvetrano, who was later sentenced for mafia association.

In police transcripts of those conversations Becchina implicated himself as being involved in vote fixing in support of the election campaign of Giuseppe Marinello, from the People of Freedom party, who, at the time, was running for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies representing Sciacca in Sicily. In their conversation Sacco also boasted about his role in the campaign of Ludovico Corrao saying "But I fully carried inside an iron bell ... I'm not kidding, 6,400 votes..." Both incidences clearly show the impact of organized crime on parliamentary elections in Sicily.

In a mysterious wrinkle to this story, ex senator Corrao was later the victim of a gruesome murder. In 2011 his throat was found cut with a kitchen knife, nearly decapitating his head, both wrists had been slashed and he was left in a bloody pool having apparently also been bludgeoned with a statuette. After the slaughter, Seiful Islam, a Bangladeshi servant, called the police and confessed to the murder. Islam later attempted suicide while in custody and was found not guilty by reason of unsound mind and transferred to a psychiatric facility.

Most people who follow the illicit trafficking of antiquities will already be familiar with the name of Gianfranco Becchina -- a name frequently linked to Giacomo Medici, Robin Symes, and Bob Hecht and their roles in furthering the illicit antiquities trade. Less well known perhaps, at least among the who's who list of criminals involved in art crimes, is Matteo Messina Denaro, or the details of Becchina's alleged involvement with the inner circle of this Cosa Nostra kingpin. This, despite the fact that Becchina seems to have been sent a warning message from the mob in January 2012, when someone fired shots from a shotgun at his door and left an intimidating gift of flowers.

L'omertà e la paura and the boss of bosses

With a name straight out of an Italian comic book, Matteo Messina Denaro, also known as "Diabolik", solidified his position in the mafia following the arrests of two of his predecessors, Salvatore "Totò" Riina in 1993 and Bernardo Provenzano in 2006. He is said to command close to 1000 underlings, through 20 mafia families and white collar business associates. This makes his Trapani-based enterprise the defacto zoccolo duro (solid pedestal) of the Cosa Nostra, second only to the families in Palermo responsible for illicit trafficking across the Atlantic between the new generations of the American and Sicilian Cosa Nostra.

Ruthless and calculating, Denaro earned a reputation for brutality by murdering rival Trapani crime boss Vincenzo Milazzo, and then strangling Milazzo's girlfriend who was then three months pregnant. A fugitive since 1993, he was convicted in absentia for mafia bomb attacks that killed 10 people in Rome, Florence and Milan and wounded many others.

As is common among organized crime syndicates, Denaro saught to diversify his interests. Wiretaps obtained by prosecutors suggest that the crime boss had interests in more than 40 corporate entities and 98 properties, laundering funds through various third parties and third party entities.

In 2013 anti-Mafia task force investigators seized a prized Trapani-based olive grove in Sicily worth €20m on the basis that profits from this agricultural enterprise provided an economic support structure for the fugitive crime boss. In 2015, 16, and 17 more arrests and seizures followed as the authorities work to cut off the revenue streams of the boss on the run.

Despite being a fugitive from justice, this entrepreneur mafioso with dirty hands is thought to be hiding in plain sight somewhere in Sicily, perhaps even in his home town, Castelvetrano, where Becchina resides and where Denaro's relatives and a daughter, conceived while on the lam, reside.

Image Credit: Bellumvider Cultural Society
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To further dismantle Denaro's operational funding, this week Italy's Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate (Dia), through the Court of Trapani's penal and preventive measures section, seized all movable assets, including real estate and corporate enterprises attributable to Gianfranco Becchina on the basis of an order issued from the District Attorney of Palermo. This includes Becchina's cement trade business, Atlas Cements Ltd., Olio verde srl., his own olive oil production company, Demetra srl., Becchina & company srl., and Palazzo Pignatelli, once the noble residence of the family Tagliavia-Aragona-Pignatelli, which is part of the ancient Castello Bellumvider (the public part is owned by the city and houses the town hall). Investigators also seized Becchina's land, vehicles and bank accounts.

The Trapani branch of the Cosa Nostra is believed to have accumulated some portions of its wealth through the proceeds of illicit archaeological finds, many procured through grave robbers working at the isolated Archaeological Park of Selinunte, one of Sicily's great ancient Greek cities, located near Castelvetrano. The archaeological site covers 40 hectares and includes Greek temples, ancient town walls, and the ruins of residential and commercial buildings and given its remote location, much of the site has not been formally excavated, leaving it prey to opportunistic looters.

Image Credit: Accademia degli incerti

The link from Matteo Messina Denaro to Gianfranco Becchina begins with Denaro's father, Francesco Messina Denaro, who was the capo mandamento in Castelvetrano and the head of the mafia commission of the Trapani region. Francesco Messina Denaro was believed to have been behind the theft of the famous Efebo of Selinunte, a 3′ tall bronze statue of Dionysius Iachos from the 5th century BCE, stolen on October 30, 1962 and recovered in 1968 through the help of Rodolfo Siviero, who orchestrated a sting operation with mafia contacts by posing as the "nephew" of a Florentine art gallery that would purchase antiquities without asking too many questions about ownership. When the mafia intermediaries tried to fence the statue in Foligno, six accomplices were arrested and the statue was returned to the Civic Museum of Castelvetrano, though not before a shootout with the authorities.

Law enforcement authorities working on this case drew information about Becchina's connection to Cosa Nostra through former traffic cop, Concetto Mariano of the Cosa Nostra Marsala family. Mariano began cooperating with justice officials two months after being arrested. A second informant, Giuseppe Grigoli, again a cooperating Cosa Nostra prestanome told the PM of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Palermo that between 1999 and 2006 he was given envelopes filled with money by Becchina, to be delivered discreetly to Vincenzo Panicola, the husband of Matteo Messina Denaro's sister Patrizia Messina Denaro, both of whom have beenconvicted for their own mafia collusion and have had substantial property holdings of their own confiscated.

The Dancing Satyr
Image Credit piazza Plebiscito Museum

A unnamed Marsala family informant also told law enforcement that he had been instructed by the head of his mafia command to steal the bronze statue of the Dancing Satyr, attributed by scholars to Praxiteles housed at the Piazza Plebiscito Museum in Mazara del Vallo. The order for the theft (never executed) was said to have come directly from Matteo Messina Denaro, who would then be marketing it through experienced Swiss channels.

Interestingly, this dancing satyr bronze was purportedly fished from the Strait of Sicily by a fishing boat from Mazara called the "Captain Ciccio" in 1997. Mafioso Francesco Messina Denaro, also went by the name "Don Ciccio"Mere coincidence?

Maybe, but along with the eight men of his crew, the captain and owner of the Captain Ciccio received a hefty reward for their fishing expedition.

Maybe, but along with the eight men of his crew, the captain and owner of the Captain Ciccio received a hefty reward for their fishing expedition.

Shipowner Toni Scilla received fifty percent; Francesco Adragna, as captain, received twenty-five percent; and the rest of the prize was divided between crew members in proportion to their job duties as boatswain, engineer, or shipmate.

UPDATE: As of late morning a fire has broken out at Becchina's residence at Palazzo Pignatelli. Reports say the fire occurred in his daughter's apartment during the execution of the DIA search warrant. Investigators suspect that it was a Becchina family member intent on destroying certain documents.

No confirmation by the fire department yet as to if the fire was arson or accidental.

Green is the driving force behind his family’s private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts, which purportedly includes somewhere between 44,000 - 50,000 objects depending on whom you as. Only a small portion of this private collector's objects will make up the core collection which will go on display later this week at the opening of Washington DC's Museum of the Bible.

Speaking with the journalist, Carroll significantly downplayed the importance of his role in the Greens' antiquities purchases telling the WSJ that it was his job to flag potential objects for purchase, the family eventually greenlighted. Carroll is even quoted as saying “had no idea an acquisition had been made until the items showed up.” After one trip to Dubai, which according to Carroll's Facebook page occurred between January 11 and January 16, 2010, he claims that he informed Steve Green to end the purchase negotiations because of “issues of provenance.”

But this seeming care for the ethical collecting of antiquities, doesn't quite match up to previous statements Carroll has made publicly in the past.

In March 2012, while still affiliated with the Green family, Scott Carroll gave several quotes for an article in the Toledo Bladethat implied a much more active role in the purchase of the Green's antiquities, as well as his roll for looking for other potential collector/donors.

If Green worked closely with international and national agencies, why was his 2010 concerns about the Dubai purchases not relayed to the federal authorities?

Digging further, in a 98-minute lecture on September 6, 2013 at the University of the Nations, published to YouTube and transcribed below in its entirety, there were several more eye-opening statements which clearly portray Carroll as more than someone merely following the orders of the Greens.

It is enlightening to read the entire transcript though I have highlighted portions which emphasize his role in setting up some of these collections.

Opener: My name is David and I have the privilege of starting us off this evening, and I want to welcome all of you who have come. I would encourage you to probably get in as close as you can on either side because we are going to see some amazing treasures rolled out here on the tables. And you’re here to see things and have them explained that, ah, you’ve never seen before.

We want to welcome everyone who’s watching this streaming. And we’ve been having some amazing days here, during the workshop, and what we are experiencing is, god is calling us to more in several different categories. And one of the things is, ah, a greater love and appreciation and engagement with the word of god.

And, uh, having Dr. Scott Carroll here is a such a wonderful gift. We have already done in previous sessions an introduction to him, but you know he is a man of god with incredible skills in all of these things of antiquities and in ancient manuscripts. As understanding some of the cutting edge technologies too…that are producing some of the archeological discoveries of these days, and understanding the languages of the ancient world. What I love when I get together with this man is his heart, to help people really understand how trustworthy and reliable god’s word is.

And he makes a lot of very amazing academic data accessible for all of us to understand in a transformative way. So, uh, Scott we welcome you this evening. It’s a delight to have you and Denise here with us and, ah, you know your honorary YWAMers [Note: this is an acronym for Youth With A Mission - YWAM] already in our midst. We just…(inaudible)… we just love and appreciate you. So, let’s just commit this time to the lord.

•Prayer: Jesus thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the way it has been given, and passed on over the centuries. And I pray that this evening as Scott shares with us that you’ll meet us again. And make your word come alive, so that we can, uh, engage with it and then extend your kingdom. Blessings on Scott. Amen.

•Scott: Thank you. Oh I have this. Thank you very much. It’s great to be here. And I want to thank you all for the sacrifice of your time. I hope there might be one thing that you leave that you’ll remember (laughs) when you breathe your last breath. (laughs) That’s a tall order. (laughs) I hope to challenge you tonight. (laughs). Thank you for your help. How many of you were with me earlier today? Thank you, I’d like you to teach the class tonight. (laughs)

Would you mind and pardon me to teach some of the same material again? I think it might be beneficial to repeat it for you, helpful for the people in the streaming video, and also for the rest of the class. You’ve become my students for two hours. There will be a test at the end of this period. The test is, I told the students from earlier, is that when you go out this door and enter life, because we don’t learn or teach for entertainment, but to seek before god, tools and skills that can impact ourselves in the world.

So, I’ll divide our evening tonight into several parts. One would be kind of to describe who I am and my background. Because I have a kind of strange pilgrimage. It’ll help you better understand the things that I do.

Then I’d like to briefly describe some of the discoveries that have been made. And of course we will take time to look hands on, on many of these things.

So I’d ask as things are passed around that you remember they’re real. If you have liquids, that you will put them down on the ground, that you’ll be very careful as you pass them from one person to another. And there will be scrolls that we will roll out across the middle. And when we do, we'll look at them together. So I’ll have you draw in on the middle, so that I can point things out.

In some ways, I hope to be as a teacher, your eyes, so that you learn to see things the same way that I see things. It’s a part of learning.

So, you’ll begin with learning a bit about me. We will talk a bit about discoveries. We will certainly look at some materials and, uh, finally I have some words of, ummm, spiritual encouragement that I’d like to breathe into you.

Well with that said, let me get my computer going. A faithful, trustful ma…, uh, PC. Given straight from heaven. (laughs)

Ah, let’s see here, one second. All right, thank you.

Ah, I will begin here and I, as with the earlier seminar, would just like to call this reason to believe.

I, there’s a double entendre with that saying. So, the idea that God has both given us both reason and I believe he’s kissed us with evidence. Like an incarnation of sorts, and with that, with that said, this for me is like my work space. And the man holding his head was a very famous scholar at Cambridge of Hebrew manuscripts.

And I understand what he smells, what he sees, and why the poor man’s holding his head. Literally in this collection, for those who are biblical scholars in here, this is the famous Cairo Genizah. [NOTE: The Cairo Genizah is a collection of some 300,000 Jewish manuscript fragments that were found in the genizah, or storeroom, of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, or Old Cairo, Egypt.] It took well over a hundred years to work through this material. I know both the joy, the thrill, and the anguish of this.

This is typically what my desk looks like. OK, tell me, the same?

OK, my Phd is in a very narrow, unmarketable area. (laughs) Yes, it’s not posted normally on monster.com.

My training is in ancient languages, archeology, history. I think that we were required in my program to have 13 ancient languages, of which some I read well, others I don’t.

Ah, because of my language skills I work with unknown ancient manuscripts. I suspect I have seen more things, my wife, my lovely wife is here. I suspect I have seen as much or more than anybody alive.

So I see unusual texts all the time. All the time. So I’m very comfortable in an undefined setting. Um, I like looking at things that are unknown.

Because of my language training, people with collections began to come to me from Europe. And they wanted to know what they had. They would have collections passed down by relatives. Of course defining what you had brought value to it.

So it opened up to me a world of collectors and items. And so for over 30 years I’ve been working with collections of this sort. I have also had the privilege to meet people who collect such things. They’re wealthy people who have strong passions about collections. Which can be problematic if it’s mixed with issues of religion.

Strong passions, money, power. Um, I’ve been blessed in my career to build the largest collection of biblical manuscripts in the world. Twice.

And, um, it has meant this last time, spending over 70 million dollars in three years. And assembling over 55 thousand items.And this means building around that, the scholarship necessary, academic associations, and, um, exhibits for the public.

So, ah, it’s a lot of work, but it, it’s what god has done in my life. So we’ve expanded these things and worked in these areas …(inaudible)… Um, it has furthered my knowledge of items that are out there to be acquired.

Up until a year and a half ago, I was commissioned by very wealthy families to represent their interests buying things. So I would go into a collection like this, and literally, I see these things every three weeks like that. And in a matter of a day, sort through everything of interest, assess its value, talk to the collector, offer some money, and acquire everything. Knowing exactly what its financial value would be at auction.

A year and a half ago we shifted to work with the seller and not the buyer. Our services were gladly welcomed by people who had things. Because oftentimes they sold things, almost always not knowing what they had. Let’s say a little text like this.

This was originally a roll. I showed portions of it at Kona several months ago. Since that time it’s been apportioned out properly. This came from a mummy mask. And the person who owned it would have been happy to sell it for a small amount, but we knew that the text inside was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more. So my representing the collector brings value to them. And I work with a team of people who do. So we all specialize in different languages; different writing styles, different texts, and everyone is the best person in the world at what they do.

And we go through a pile like that, maybe in Istanbul, Tel Aviv, the UK, and in a matter of days, know exactly what’s of value inside that collection.I’ll tell you right now that biblical texts came out of the pile, and this happens on a regular basis, so this is my job as a professor.

I’m going to ask my wife, and if we can go table to table with this, and I’ll let her handle it because this is worth just under two million dollars. Ah, this work is an author quoted in the New Testament. Only three other texts of this play survive in the world. This, ah, this is the earliest of the four, three others and this, by 800 years. This is the earliest writing in Greek you will ever see in your life. Because it’s survived in a mummy mask, uh, it, was preserved. And uh, that’s why it’s as early as it is.

It, it is a witness to the kind of writing from the lost library of Alexandria. So when we look at this pretend, I mean for real understanding, that you are seeing writing from the lost library of Alexandria.

And it’s an example of just the work I do, that’s all I’m showing it to you for. Now while she’s going around with that, let me continue to show you some other things I do.

Ah, this is myself lecturing at Cambridge University. Professors, they don’t like to be lectured to.

Uh, I’m with a friend who published the dead sea scrolls, …(inaudible).. I’m the one with the hair. (laughs)

Um, we did an exhibit a year ago in St. Peter’s Square, at St. Peter’s Basilica. You can see a banner, black, beige, black, on the left. It goes all the way back to St. Peter’s Basilica. I’m not the one with the hat. (laughs) But you can see the exhibit on the right.

It was the largest exhibit on the Bible, ever, at the Vatican. I’m just trying to help you understand the odd things I do.

You remember, when this was being planned, we were together at Cunningham’s. Praise God, huh, it happened, huh!

So this is me, not the one with the red hat. And I’m with the director of the Vatican library. This is part of the exhibit showing cardinals and archbishops at the exhibit.

The book that was written on the exhibit was given to the Pope and distributed to all of the cardinals. And some went many times to the exhibit. Some, ah, went, they, ah, viewed and I’m going to show you things today that would be the kinds of things that would have been on exhibit at the Vatican.

This may be very hard for you to understand, but the scrolls that were exhibited there, were so overwhelming in their spiritual presence, people fell on their face, were slain by their presence, of the scrolls, it’s just unbelievable. They would go in, tens of thousands in a day pressing in, and people falling down and people stumbling over ‘em! (laughs)

So, ah, and then there is an exhibit in the US that we had that we created that is travelling the US.

Now where do I find these things? I said that some are found in mummy masks, watch this before you buy any on eBay.

Um, I do dissolve texts from mummy masks. The masks in some places were made using discarded papyrus. But we know that the time they did that, the place they did that, and the language it was written in. For the most part they have nothing in them, and the process that we’ve developed is a proprietary process. My wife will laugh and say she remembers the times we started, that she would walk into the house and smell mummy on the stove. (laughs) Nothing like the smell of mummy on the stove. (laughs)

Oh, so we start with this ooooooh, yeah sometimes that’s what’s inside. Actually, no there are no bodies inside, but this is an example of the papyrus on the inside, that was used like papier-mâché. And so let me show you here and give you an example of how this works.

This will only take a minute. This was done at Baylor University where I had an appointment. And it’ll show you just very quickly the, um, a process that actually lasted six to eight hours.

The solution that’s used is a special solution that won’t, um, destroy the ink. You’ll see the outside of this gradually go away and you might say what a destructive process, but I would remind you that all archaeology is a destructive process.

Uh, we actually have--I’m working with a professor in the US on a polymer that is placed as an application over the outside of the mask and preserves it intact while we extract the inside.

So here we are gradually dissolving the mask. And this will take a few minutes, you’ll gradually see portions of the text appear and the face disappear. They would put a piece of linen over where the face was.

See text beginning to come out and the face goin’ away. Oh, that’s not my hands with the bracelet. (laughs)

This per…(inaudible)…with the masks that we target, are masks that date after the time of the Library of Alexandria. They’re Greco-Roman masks because they will yield Greek texts. So this is 150 B.C. Did we go past it?

So did you see at the end all of the texts laid out? Those texts fit into an entire scroll, or half a scroll. Now I, I should say to you, that, one second (laughs) oh crud…let’s see, let’s do it this way, sorry. Um. Oftentimes the text that are found are just common everyday texts. But five percent are important.

Ah, we found last year, I found the earliest known text of Romans, the earliest known texts of First Samuel, lost works of Sappho, tons of Homer. So this is one area where we find text, another area, is working with technology and patents. You can see the text is actually a recycling of a text. The text that’s in black, is actually, you’re viewing upside down, but you see the two columns that are underneath that are faint. So how do you read the column that’s the two columns underneath?

With a professor at Oxford, developed a scan across the light spectrum, 20 different stops. And pixel by pixel made a decision about the best, the best way to view each box.

Look closely at the text, now this is the application of our process. The text that you’re looking at now is the earliest account of the last supper in Jesus’s language. The, this manuscript is 300 pages long.

So we work with mummy masks, we work with piles of ancient texts, and with ancient technology, and with technology with ancient texts.

Here’s another one real fast. 800 pages, completely damaged by water. Said to the same optical physicist from Ukraine, professor at Oxford. How do you think we might be able to see this? Do you think maybe the stylus of the scribe left an indentation in the parchment?

He took a few seconds and drew a picture, he said I’ll get back to you in two weeks. He said let’s look closely at this area. He bathed it with lasers, and was able to create a shadow in the grooves.

Ok so there’s a text. There’s the area that we are looking at, there’s his process. (laughs) I really have a fun job! (laughs) So it’s a use of technology, and the use of contacts, working with things. If you ever think to pray for us, please do!
Someone said, well what’s your ministry, coming by our booth. I, I don’t know. We kind of do research and stuff. All right, now let me very quickly show you discoveries that have been made in the last year and a half.

OK, ah, we’re looking at 14 texts of Homer, including one of the earliest known texts of Homer ever found, including a very early text of Homer found yesterday.

Ah, I don’t know if you know who Sappho is but, but, look what I’ll briefly go down on this list. What you need to understand is the Times, the London Times Literary Supplement, that thirty of these items would be front page news when they’re published. Just, so, we have Sappho here, we have, ah, Euripides who’s quoted by Jesus in the New Testament.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a text of Euripides to display. I have one from a mummy mask and my wife will pass it around. It’s interesting to know that the New Testament authors use popular culture. Jesus quotes from a tragedian poet while he’s knocking Saul off his burro, and Sa…and Saul the Pharisian [sic] Sanhedrin understands the texts that’s being quoted.

The other text that was passed around, Menander, was quoted by Paul. Ah, so we have accounts by Plato, accounts by Aristotle, this account by Demosthenes was written within, within 20 years of his death.

Ah, all kinds, I figure about 65 classical texts discovered in the last year and a half. Biblical, Biblical manuscripts, dead sea scrolls. Um, I had mentioned this as well, this is, this is a month ago. A leather robe, worn by a high priest in Israel, dating 100 years after Daniel, written with Aramaic scripture around the collar.
I, I hope you understand how unbelievable that it is. I’m sorry I didn’t bring it with me, (laughs). We’re still working on it.

These are all texts of Genesis, of Exodus. We have the earliest text of Exodus 24 here. Um, so, earliest, yeah there’s nothing earlier in the world. This is the earliest in the world. And you might not believe it, or you wonder how do you know.

Please understand that the world I work in, people demand that you know. No one will pay 1.1 million dollars for that text that is in his hands, unless you know for sure it dates to when it dates to. The Vatican library will not want to do an exhibition with you unless you know the dates of something. So, if you look on the screen you see texts discovered of almost, well many of the Old Testament books. With New Testament books, most of the gospels. Including a first century text of the Gospel of Mark. That’s the earliest, that will be the earliest text of the New Testament.

• Audience Question, …(inaudible)…most people would not…(inaudible) what was the oldest …(inaudible)…

The earliest text of the New Testament before that was of the Gospel of John and dated somewhere between 120 and 140 AD. We’re looking now at a text of Mark that dates between 70 and 110. And there’s even something more important than that. That I’ve not even told David Hamilton and I’m not going to.

But I do have here, the earliest text of Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb of Jesus. And if you look carefully at the bottom of the writing, clear written page, at the end of the second to last line to the right, is the, is the name Maria, and then on the bottom left, the bottom line on the far left is Magdalene. Alright, um, there are early texts of Luke, I have the second earliest text.

Scott, that’s the oldest.

That’s the oldest anywhere in the world of that portion of Matthew 27 and 28. Ah, while we’re passing around texts, this is the earliest text in the world of Luke 16. And the second earliest text of the gospel of Luke. Please make sure I get them all back. Um, there are texts of every conceivable book. I was with my wife eating Thai in Oklahoma City when I got a text from a, from a collector in the Middle East. It was a box of broken papyrus. While we ate our good food, I noticed that the text was all written by the same hand. Looked like some of the pieces may fit together. Thought it looked like 1 Corinthians. Turned out to be 20 pages of 1 Corinthians. Under, it’s now owned by a German collector. It was appraised for over 7 million dollars, and sold for somewhat less than that. Underneath that text was this. And two weeks ago I had time to look at that. Two weeks ago. And it turns out to be the earliest text of Timothy in any text. So let me pass this around as well.

…(inaudible)…Audience Question

Oh Codex, a codex is from the Latin word for book, so these things are scrolls. Many of you are looking at texts that have no writing on the back, they were scrolls. Christians popularized the mechanism of the book. It actually became a visual image of Jesus himself. It was economical because you could write on both sides of the writing material, apart from a scroll mentioned in Ezekiel in Revelation written on both sides, which was very uncommon. They would usually write on one.

So still looking at our thing, oh, in addition now to twenty pages in 1 Corinthians, two months ago I found--my wife is giving me a signal.

Yeah, yeah, no pictures of the papyrus please, they’re not published. We have, just understand the value of these things are enormous. There are, ah, professors who, from North America would send students here. They would pay their tickets and send them here, to do two things: to take pictures of the texts for them to publish, and number two to discredit you and us because they’re in your hands.

We found also 2 Corinthians chapter 6 through Galatians 3, so these are big finds, I think over 2…over 200 texts biblical texts, of one sort or another of importance. And the rest of the stuff is just other stuff we worked on discovering.

Alright so! I won’t labor this--belabor this more than to show you some quick pictures of these things. So these are--these are of Homer. This is Sappho, more stuff, more stuff, more stuff.

Genesis, here I was showing some in the earlier class. Can you see my…here this is Ishmael, the earliest text in the world of Genesis 17. This is Mo…mosis…Moses, this is Exodus. Pharaoh…pharaha…pharaoh, these are fragments of Numbers and Deuteronomy, Genesis and Leviticus. This is unbelievable.

Ok, first you can see Jezebel here right?

This is the earliest text of 2 Kings 9. But see up here, ánthrōpos, man, person. You might not see down here if you don’t know Greek, this is child, paideía. This text came from a mummy mask. Here’s ánthrōpos, their, and it turns out to be the earliest and only second known text, early text, of 1 Samuel. The person being mentioned is, ah, Samuel’s mother, praying for her child. That’s the child being mentioned, and that’s what’s preserved in the text.

Audience question. What was under it?

What was under it? Homer’s Iliad, (laughs) I love it! It’s classical text, biblical text, all put together in a mummy!

Texts of psalms. We had mentioned this with David Hamilton yesterday. This is the earliest text of Psalm 3 and 4. You can see it’s written in a book form. So who used it, Jews or Christians? Christians did, right.

Text of, ah, Psalms, text. People ask me often, the most incredible thing I’ve discovered. Very wisely I say, having met my wife in high school. (laughs) Yeah, there she is. Actually, the most moving discovery was this text of Isiah on the left. The second earliest known text of Isiah in the world. It’s in the messianic section and tell me why, that God kissed us to discover it on Good Friday. It’s just…In my home office.

Audience question …(inaudible) You had mentioned that…(inaudible)….classics with some of the…(inaudible)….was it likely …(inaudible)…

Yes. Ya, completely unintentional. They sent some young mortuary priest, out to the dump and gathered up whatever scraps he could pick.

Audience question …(inaudible)

No, it, discarded papyri, that’s it. One community had discarded Samuel and the other community discarded Homer and they end up together in the mortuary. But isn’t that so surprising about their culture. Living together, interfacing, these texts and all. Wow, it’s neat.

Audience question …(inaudible)

Yeah, it was thrown away and they used it as garbage, recycled. Literacy was clearly not as high, certainly higher among the Jews. Perhaps as high as 30% among the Greeks in Alexandria. Over a thousand known books were discovered amongst the Dead Sea scrolls. And many unidentified fragments. If you’ve ever been there, in the desert, a library of ten thousand, a library of thousands of books. So they did have texts, but literacy was not as high as what it is today.

Okay, so on the left up here, right now, until Mark was published, is the second earliest text of the New Testament. But it’s…but it’s not published yet. This. So no one in the world knows about it. It’s Matthew 12. On the righthand side is also Matthew and Luke dating to around 150. On the lefthand side, again unpublished, is the earliest account of the nativity of Jesus. Luke 2 dating to around 140. On the right hand side is Luke 12 dating to before 200. On and on and on. This is an early text of John 3. On the left up there is the earliest text of Acts 19, the revival in Ephesus.

Audience speaking…(inaudible) that’s are devotions tomorrow morning.

Yeah. Really? Well this is the, ah, so you don’t need to go, this is the speech of Demetrius. On the righthand side is an early magical text. The kind that they would have burned. Earliest text of Romans found in a mummy mask. Earliest of Romans 14. This--I’m almost done and then we’re gonna look at scrolls. This is the earliest copy of any of Paul’s writings. 1 Corinthians 9, uh, this…sorry?

Audience Question

Uh, that dates around 150, 140-160 something like that. Now if you can look at this and imagine 1 Corinthians in 20 pages that’s what it looks like. And then 2 Corinthians 6 to Galatians 3 is another 15 pages, 35 pages of scripture.

Audience question

It was found in a box. No…yeah…dating. It’s done--each of the specialists in the language work with the paleography and then set a plus or minus 30 or 40 years.

Audience question.

Paleography is the minute changes in writing, when I roll…I’ll show you with the scroll when I roll it out.

Audience question

You can but too much is destroyed. Not as much, not as much is gained as we know by the handwriting. Furthermore, the carbon dating will just tell you the date of the object not the writing. We have some other ideas that we are working with our people, like the Ukrainian guy, but were not there yet.

All right, early text of Ephesians, early text of Hebrews. I mean…okay, by the way this is what a letter would look like. So, you think of Philemon, Onesimus, they would be carrying a little thing like this. All right, there’s too much to talk about. Let me…I would like to roll out a scroll and let the scroll speak to us about how it was written and created. And point out some things as I see with the scrolls.

I want you to understand that the largest collection of scrolls in private hands ten years ago was about 100. And I had the privilege of organizing that. Now the largest collection is--I also had the privilege of organizing--is 4,500 scrolls.

So, we’ve been blessed to work with scrolls. A lot of things that we learn and we talk about, about how God’s word was transmitted. We talk about things we think happened with scrolls. We say when the, don’t we, when the scribe copied the name for God, he washed himself, changed his pen, changed his ink. How many have heard that before?

Sure. Of over five thousand scrolls I’ve looked at carefully, I’ve only seen one where that’s evidenced.

Now it may be more, I have a close friend who is a Jewish scribe. How about the one where if they’ve made a mistake or two mistakes or three mistakes they would destroy…they would either destroy the skin or destroy the scroll. Anybody hear that?

Sometimes we create these legends that we think gives authority to the Bible. I think it is very important that, ah, teachers of God’s word have a clear understanding, how God preserved his own word.

Like many of you, I live in a Muslim context. I have a number of friends who are Muslim. So often I hear of stories of Christians going in and not being able to answer questions of errors and variations and translations in the Bible. And what I’d like to show you is just what the evidence says.

We don’t need to make up pharositical rules and laws and regulations around the scripture. I often think about scripture being like a humongous T-Rex and I’m at the very toe of its claw, right at the end of the claw, and I have a wisp of straw in my hands and the wisp is broken. And as people come near the T-Rex I say don’t worry, stand away, I’ll protect you. And the T-Rex, God in his omnipotence smiles and says Go at it boy. (laughs) You know you’ve heard the expression before “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” That’s completely wrong. It’s just “God said it, that settles it” It doesn’t matter whether we believe it or not that makes it right. Right, so what I’d like to do here is, ah, maybe before rolling out the scroll I have an Isaiah scroll with me. As far as I now there are less than 10 of these in the world. Even that date to this modern time.

The earliest text that we have on how a synagogue operated is Luke 4. Jesus as second Adam comes victorious out of the wilderness. He goes into the synagogue, now they had a special person and they still do, who rolls the scroll to the right place.

They don’t have chapters or verses. In fact, I will open this to 53 approximately and hold it on its sides on…by the curls here and pass it around. And why don’t you…you each look at it carefully. Why don’t we do it for sake of time 2 at a time, look at it together.

So, Jesus and Luke IV comes into the synagogue. The scroll is opened up. We know from later sources exactly the order of reading of texts that supported the Torah. If those medieval rules were in place in the time of Jesus we can predict actually the day that he was in the synagogue.

Now while it gives chapter and verses today for the readings. There are no chapters and verses in the scroll. So, the way the rules worked is you could read anywhere it was opened to.

You tracking with me on this? So, we think that the reading was Isaiah 58 but it was opened wide enough for Jesus to come up and read 61 which was a proclamation about his own authority. So, can you see that happening, do you understand that?

As 53 is going around, you think of the Ethiopian unit pondering on this. So, it’s all of great interest.

Let me ask my wife to be of help with me on this, please. And we are going to roll out a scroll. If you’ll hold onto this end, I’m going to take it down. This scroll is--you can tell a different color, than the other one that was rolled out. It’s done in calfskin just like the other one. Um, except this is dyed.

This process was done by people called Sephardic Jews and it’s, ah, slightly different than the other process. And what I’ll ask you to do is, if you imagine each…each of these are skins. Are you on the end there? Yeah, great. Pull it all the way to your way please. Yeah, great. These are made with skins. They would process the skin. They would line it. They would put pinholes down the sides. They ran strings across it. They lined it with a dull knife. They made their own ink. They would take a quill, oftentimes a quill made from goose feather and they would sit and begin to write and it would take one year.

The first time I had the opportunity to work with an ancient manuscript, I was in a collection and holding it and turned to the Gospel of John, and I read that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

And for me it was nearly a sacramental protestant moment. You know, I’m holding this and I was thinking, what would an ancient person think. So, you’re looking at kind of a living text, now when I call you to come up, and I want to make sure that the papyrus is away, and, uh, we will have opportunity to finish out with Isaiah, trust me. Or you can come to see if afterwards.

I don’t want to drop or stumble over anything when we come up, a stampede to the altar or something. Ah, but, I would like you to come up to look at certain things.

And I’ll go to the end and you gather on both sides and there will be far too many people over here so go on both sides and even out. And I’ll start asking you to look for certain things.

Okay, come, come along. Go ahead. Anywhere. If…now I don’t know if we can, ah (inaudible)--is there any way to get different lighting in here, so they can see better? Let there be light? They’re saying no. Let there be light. No? No, that’s it, alright, okay.

As you look at this, first on the edge, not on the ink, but on the edge go ahead and feel. Can you see the faint hints of lines? The pe…the people on my left are looking at it properly. You probably noticed that people on the right…right…yeah?

I want you to look to tell me if you see any small circles in the columns in between. Does anybody see any small circles? Say here if you see any. Here? Any others? Do you see them? Let me tell you what they are. Those are all corrections, made by a…they are marks for corrections made by a corrector. You can oftentimes see the correction in the text itself corresponding to it.

This particular manuscript was first copied around 1400, I’ve already said I’ve worked with a lot, right. You trust me? There may be 30 in the world earlier. So, we have a very early testimony here.

Those circles were not made by the original scribe. How many of you wear glasses in here, you can’t see without them. Eyeglasses were invented about the time this scroll was written. So, I know you do. So, even today they copy and correct and correct--how many of you…how many of you would put the quill down and walk away and say I got it right.

I don’t think so and please understand that the people who are marking in the columns are the sons and grandsons and great grandsons of the original scribe. Yes! It’s a family tradition. Imagine them correcting the writing of their father that’s been read in the synagogue.

But don’t ever again presume that these texts were passed around magically without mistake! Better than that, they were corrected! God, God used our frail inabilities and worked with us.

We’re...This, this isn’t the Koran. See this is the Bible, God working graciously through fallen people to protect his word. So you don’t need to create or continue far-fetched stories that don’t match the evidence.

Now you…you probably can see many erasures as you look at it and corrections. Here, they’re--they’re all over the place. But…but, you know, it’s often not more than one or two a column. And actually when all of the manuscripts are compared, 98 percent of them are the same.

But does that--but do we need to create some kind of unrealistic, superstitious, kind of argument for the preservation of the scriptures? No. The, um, the breaks that you see, in between the lines, are sections. They’re ruled by tradition as well. It’s one of the ways that we date how early a particular manuscript is.

And…and they all…in the synagogue, read the same passages, from end to end throughout the Torah every year. You might…you might see on the left hand side of every column, do you see letters that are extended and made long? Down there at the end, do you see some?

The reason they’re doing that is to make sure they justify the line and stay exactly on the same line as they copy the text down. It’s a lot, it’s an internal way of making sure it’s copied correctly.

Now, this is the most moving part of the Torah. If I can…if you…if you all will just move here for me. You’re at the end of Genesis here--if we move this, go ahead and give me some slack, by the way the lighting is bad, but we’ve got two different scribes here.

Do you see the two different writings themselves? The parchments are different. What’s happened is they’ve had some kind of damage on the original scroll and replaced it with a slightly later scroll.

Look at that big correction. Sometimes they actually will, um, this is okay here. That’s good, right there. Sometimes they will actually cut out text. Um, this is the Ten Commandments, and this is the most important part of scripture.

It’s…it’s…um, written like poetry and it’s actually called the song of the sea, written by a woman, alright men. And they have it laid out like a brick wall. Because it symbolized to them a truth that would stand like a wall. That God would destroy his people’s enemies and deliver his people. And so they are not gonna write it the same way, they are gonna write it to look like a brick wall. I challenge you to take your favorite verse and write it like a brick wall.

So there are all sorts of interesting facets I could talk to you about with the creation of the scroll. What I’d like to do is overlay on top of this the other scroll. We’ll take time for pictures, hold tight here. Denise could you get that one? Thank you. If you bring it down here, please. This is the one that was laid out in yesterday’s. Thanks.

Audience Question

This--the one on the bottom was written around 1400-1450. But where we have the transition here it’s about 1500-1550. You’re back to 1450 here, but back to 1550 there. Do you see the difference? It’s just an area where it’s been corrected. Alright. So pass that up there.

Audience question …(inaudible)

No, no, the Septuagint was copied, ah, well it wasn’t always, those of you that saw--that’s good there--those of you that saw the exodus it was a scroll. So it was done as a scroll. But, but it would never be read like this in a synagogue, so it was different.

I do know by the way, the Jewish traditions of the Middle Ages, but they applied to how they copy books and I think how they hope to copy scrolls.

What is it, have you heard the expression before, that you have, ah, oh I’ve forgotten, day, um, according to law and according to reality, the Latin phrase. I don’t know, but the issue is often in life we have like one thing that we express that things really are, but then there’s the way things really are and there not always the same. Alright let me move this way please.

Alright there are a couple mechanisms on this scroll that are really interesting. The handwriting is slightly different because it’s a different tradition. This is open to another song, called the song of Moses, which is right here.

Some of you will notice that in the last column there’s a large Alif, A. Do you see how it’s larger than the other letters? This happens throughout certain scrolls, where they will make letters larger to emphasize a verse.

Here’s something else that they did…some of you who are standing here with me can see that all these letters have dots on top of them. Can you see those?
They would mark words and phrases and there are only a few with dots to show that there may be a problem with that word in the original text. But they never change the word. Never. So, they mark it and by tradition maintain the accuracy of the marking without, it’s a great way to argue for the accuracy of the text because they wouldn’t change it, they would mark it. It’s just really cool.

Audience Question ...(inaudible)

No, the vowel points don’t occur in Torahs, Um, that Isaiah scroll doesn’t have vowel points either. Vowel points are typically under the letters but they can occur above the letters too, depending on the tradition.

This…if you know Hebrew and you look at the last column, the last few columns, you’ll see certain unusually shaped letters. Like the letter P or pay, and these are very early, it shows they’re copying from an early text.

So, in some ways what I like is trying to understand what they are looking at. Ah, another point of interest is in column 1,2,3,4,5, the sixth column from the end…4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12, thirteenth line from the bottom, you’ll see actually a correction where they cut the text away.

Let’s look at the back and verify, yep. So, they were so serious about the text being right, that they would completely cut it away. It’s just completely counter to what we think about these things. This…this particular one dates to about 1500. So imagine it talking to you about what it’s seen. Imagine it telling you that it hears about Martin Luther and his anti-Semitism. Imagine the people that looked at this and this was the last view of scripture they had before going to Hitler’s ovens. Let me show you one more thing. Denise, could you bring the small scroll here please. And then we’ll take our seat and we’ll see if there are any questions, and I’ve got something spiritual I want to tell you.

Audience Question ...(inaudible)

This is done on animal skin, just like the others. It’s just a different tradition and a different process. Um, by far and away, the most valuable scroll that we have with us and one of the most valuable scrolls in the world. Do you see if open to the brick wall? It’s a Torah scroll, on sheep skin.

It’s not valuable because it’s old--it dates to about 1750--it comes from an interesting area, though. It comes from a place where two hundred and fifty thousand Jews were killed. This Torah--there were records of it from the 18th century, famous teachers wanted to read from it.We know who owned it before WWII. Did he die in Hitler’s ovens? He was put into a concentration camp. How did the scroll survive?

We know from documented evidence, he hid it in his stuff. So, because of the verified fact of that story, this is of enormous value. We know this survived Hitler too, but not like this. This was brought to Israel and by the man himself. And it was sold, it was given to his son, and then eventually sold to an art collector.

I knew it was in this private collection and was friends with the collector, so I arranged for a collector in Alaska to purchase it. He is not a believer. He is a, um, a cancer doctor. So he sees death all the time. He put it in his office, so when people came in and said there was no hope, he could point to the scroll and say, let me tell you the story of that scroll.

This…this…this….this guy, I should tell you has many troubles….as God reminds you…pray for him, as God reminds you…pray for him. I was in contact with him in between my early lecture and this lecture.

And he then, ah, donated it to our nonprofit and we got it. I used this lecturing in a Kona, it’s some big…anybody here from Kona? It’s one of your big Thursday night things.

A lady came up after and said that she was from…this was written in. And that her mother was in a concentration camp. And that she had been converted and held the scroll and had her picture taken with it. So, I can’t talk about the twists and turns of God’s provenance, but this has been preserved for you to see. I know that’s true, and I hope it’s to inspire you to know that God’s word will be preserved. He desires you to know him, and he loves you with unfailing love. Now, I’ll see what questions you have and then I’ve got one more thing to tell you, and are we close to being done?

Audience Answer 20 minutes.

Fantastic! Alright go ahead have a seat. And we’ll keep these all open for photographs and everything afterwards. What kind of question do we have. Yes?

Audience Question …(inaudible)…can you tell us the story….private party?

Yes, how in the world did a person in Turkey get something like that? It’s actually very common. Collections were amassed in the nineteen hundreds, nineteen twenties. Passed down through several generations of a family, usually a big argument over money, and they decide to sell some of it.

The, ah, there are very strict laws that we have to be aware of about antiquities dealing and antiquities sales. So, we vet those carefully to know that we’re not dealing with anything that’s underground. But I’m not ever surprised learning that there’s some collection, of something, somewhere. Amazing things turn up all over the world. Yes?

Audience Question …(inaudible)…

(laughs) Well, no. Yeah, they’re corrections. They’re errors. They’re not intentional errors they’re not malicious errors. Let…let me…let me just ask a question about the text to you. If you had a digital text and you had a printed text, and you had a handwritten text, which one would be easier for me to corrupt?

Somehow, we think it’s the written text but it’s not! It’s the hardest one to mess up and to change around. I’m kind of a sadistic professor. I’ve made my students actually have to determine why the corrections were made. It’s usually they skip a line forward, skip a line back, skip a phrase, skip the next word, simple things.
The scribe is writing away before God. Are you married? And his kid runs through, he skips a word and he goes to the next letter or thing, but they’re non-malicious variations that have been corrected over time.

I, literally, teaching for many years in graduate school and undergraduate, and even now lecturing in Asia for graduate school, I make my students by candlelight copy texts and scripture. And I say to them, if you make one mistake, I will fail the entire class. See, they don’t know me well enough--they think I’m telling the truth but I’m not.

If…If you teach your sbs’, or dts’, or abc’s or whatever you’re teaching, I would strongly recommend giving that as an exercise. Let them copy something. They will…they will get a deep appreciation for how God’s word was preserved.

I had a class tell me, professor we love you we’ll never make a mistake, you’ll see; the first word, the first word was a mistake. So, it’s we understand that this is a human process in which the God of wonders works magnificently in and through us and all our frailty to preserve a word.

And you should leave here going, ah, I’m glad that’s true. And I’m speaking to you out of a pile of evidence; this is exactly how it is. And I think if you’re in a, um, an interfacing with a Muslim culture, that the kind of honesty of that interface will be accepted. Alright, so other questions? Yes.

Audience Question …(inaudible)

Yes, the ancient--that’s the issue. Um, If you mean by dead sea scrolls, …yeah really old, I don’t know what that means, let’s just say it means dead sea scrolls, I don’t know. My grandmother was really old alright…haha…so I don’t know, really old, um, let’s just say dead sea scrolls for starters, of 10,000 fragments in the dead sea scrolls that were found, 1,000 have been identified. And if you go to a text book or read online, they’ll tell you 220-230 are the Bible. And it’s Old Testament we’re talking about, not New Testament.

We know another 30 dead sea scrolls, they’re not even counted in that. And then we know the family that owned the original dead sea scrolls and they have a vault in Zurich and it has more scrolls in it. So, let’s just say there are 300, there’s only one complete one and it’s of Isaiah. They’re many small fragmentary ones. There’s one of Genesis that nobody knows about that has 3 columns. I’ve seen it because the family was trying to sell it.

If you have 70 million dollars you can still get it if you are still interested. I think I’ll wait till they come down in their price.

Then you have early Greek texts of scripture. If you were to ask me how many fragments of all the ancient languages before 1000. I would say there are over 30,000 Old Testament scriptures. Some are Latin, some are in Syriac, some are in Aramaic.

Of the New Testament there are about 25,000. And because we don’t want to double count, because some are in the same manuscript, I try to advise apologists like Josh McDowell and people I get, there are probably 40,000 manuscripts.

Now, a way of arguing for the accuracy and authority of the Bible. There…there are thousands of copies of the Iliad. Which was--it had nothing to do with Brad Pitt. It…it was the Bible for the classical world.

When we look at the texts of the Iliad, it’s copied with 95% accuracy. So that’s a fun way to argue for the authority and transmission of the Bible, by saying…let me…let’s forget the Bible, how was the Iliad copied? Would any of you go to get your taxes done by someone who failed math? Besides the US Government. No, someone who does accounting is good at math. Someone who copies texts is good at copying text.